


The Villain, the Hero and the Helper

by RiaTheDreamer



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Revenge, Temple killed Biff theory, Time Travel, Vague one-sided Temple/Biff, Violence, Whump, implied grimmons, s15 Bad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 07:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21032222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaTheDreamer/pseuds/RiaTheDreamer
Summary: In which Biff and Grif both learn that happy endings are complicated.





	The Villain, the Hero and the Helper

Temple is crying when he embraces him. The helmet covers his tears, but Biff can hear it in his breathing; wet and uneven.

“Dude,” he says and tries to pull himself away. This is- This is awkward, but it doesn’t have to be, right? Two best friends can hug like this without it being uncomfortable, right? Biff makes himself pat Temple’s back, even when his embrace threatens to crack his ribs. “Mark, you’re freaking me out.”

Temple sniffs again, and the noise is loud and desperate. He steadies himself with a deep breath, and then puts a heavy hand on Biff’s shoulder, as if trying to keep him in place. “Back in elementary, I told a bad joke about bananas that made you laugh so hard you peed your pants and I lent you my jacket so you could cover it up, but Liam, that asshole from fifth grade, saw it, but then I said I was the one who’d spilled juice on you as a prank and he believed it, but the teacher heard and I got detention for two days.”

The memories hit Biff like a bat to the face. “Why are you telling me this?” he asks. It’s only ten minutes since he last saw the Blue soldier; they’d waved goodbye as they’d gone to their separate bases. But now Temple is holding him as if they haven't talked in a decade.

“So you’ll believe me,” Temple says and removes his helmet.

It’s Temple. It’s the guy Biff has been best friends with his entire life; he can recognize his face. But it’s different now.

The Temple standing before him looks older, more weary than Biff has ever seen him before. His cheekbones look sharp enough to cut, the bags under his eyes have a blue taint to them. There are scars that Biff has never seen before, but the eyes are the same grey color.

“Mark.”

“It’s me, I swear,” Temple says. His hands are twitching, as if fighting the urge to reach out and grab him.

Biff turns around, feeling faint. He points towards Blue Base that can be spotted in the distance.

“But you’re on the other side of the canyon, right-“ The pieces fall together, slowly but surely. They’ve spent too many evenings watching crappy movies together; he can recognize this plot. “Holy crap. You look like shit, man.”

Temple’s lips creep into a smile. “You should see Surge,” he says and grabs Biff’s wrist to drag him with him up the hill. “Cronut had a point about using skin lotion.”

There is a cave in the Eastern side of the canyon. They used to meet there in the beginning, back when they’d just learned they were on opposite teams, before they’d collected the campfire.

Now it’s Temple’s hiding place as he keeps a safe distance from his past self.

He tries to explain while they walk, voices low and hushed to avoid attention.

“This all sounds like a bad sci-fi movie,” Biff says as he walks through the mouth of the cave. His head hurts, and he wishes it didn’t make this much sense. But this is a well-known plotline.

“The worst,” Temple agrees and nods. “But it worked! It wasn’t a bomb, but this is good. This is _better_. Who needs revenge when I can save you?”

The last words land a blow in his stomach.

“So I’m dead?” Biff asks and the final pieces. “Shit…”

“Not any longer!” Temple says. He still sounds absolutely thrilled as he guides Biff to a nearby boulder and helps him sit down. “I’m changing it. You’ll be fine! I’m saving you, and you and I- We aren’t done. Biff…”

Biff’s stomach twists. The dark thoughts cause imaginary pain, as if his body is trying to figure out how it’ll die; is it a bullet wound? And in that case; where? Or will he drown? Will he die in a fire? How much will it hurt?

There are too many questions inside his head, and eventually he settles with a breathless; “When?”

Temple crouches before him. “It’s going to be okay!” he says and rests a hand on his knee.

“It sure as hell isn’t.” Biff can feel his own breathing escape his control. His armor is too hot all of the sudden, too clammy. “You just told me- Oh shit. Georgina… I can’t-“

“You won’t,” Temple says and leans closer. “Trust me.”

“How?” Biff croaks and fears the answer. “How will I die?”

Temple hesitates; Biff can hear him open and close his mouth. The Blue soldier then pulls away and begins to pace back and forth in the darkened cave.

“We- You know those Freelancers who’re supposed to arrive tomorrow? Things didn’t go that well.” He stops there and visibly winces. When he sees Biff’s shoulder slump, he quickly adds, “But it’ll be okay now! I- I avenged you, Biff, I swear, I made those fuckers regret what they’d done…” Behind his visor, he smiles. He can still see them, still figures in his room. Puppets with broken strings. Sure, Washington and Carolina may have escaped him, but not for long. From what he’d understood from Tucker’s angry rambling, Washington had been shot, and Carolina, well, she’d been as frozen as the rest of them as he turned on the machine.

“You took an orange soldier from me,” Temple had told her as he dragged Grif with him. “This is only fair. The end justifies the means, after all.”

Now he hovers over Biff who is alive and well, and he promises, “You’re not going to die.”

Biff inhales deeply until the ache between his ribs fades. “So you built a time machine to save me?” he finally asks. There’s a tone of disbelief to it, but amusement as well. Pride. It doesn’t surprise him that Temple is willing to do this for him.

Temple lets out a gentle huff. “Well, technically Loco built it.”

“But- Wouldn’t you need me to die in order to build the machine to save me from dying?” Biff groans and grabs the side of his helmet. “Urgh, my head hurts.”

Temple falls to his knees in front of him. “You’re so smart! You’re brilliant!” he says, voice dripping with admiration. “They all thought I was _dumb_, but I- I thought about it, too! Hah! I took care of everything!”

“How?” Something creeps along Biff’s spine, and it makes him shudder. Temple has removed his helmet and he stares into his wide and crazed smile. “Mark, what have you done?”

“I just- I mean, Past Me just needs to see an orange soldier die,” Temple insists, grasping at his armor plates. “It doesn’t have to be you!”

“I don’t-“ Biff turns his head, and as his eyes adjust to the shadows of the cave, he sees the silent figure in the corner. The color is orange. “Holy shit.”

He stumbles towards it with numb legs. It’s a full set of armor, identical to his own. It’s standing, staring straight at him, with one hand reaching out in frozen desperation.

It’s armor, he tells himself, but as he comes closer he can hear the noise; yelling, but faint. Muffled from the other side of the visor.

“Mark, is there someone in there?!”

Temple appears behind him to put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay – he can’t move. I tried to mute him, but he just won’t stop yelling.”

Biff is pretty sure that he can hear the word ‘help’. “This is fucked up.”

“He’s evil, Daniel!” Temple insists and tries to pull him away from the orange armor. “He is _friends _with your _killer_!”

“Why does he have my armor?”

“The war is a fluke. We’re just test subjects. Simulation troopers. They have _dozens _of people just like us, treating them like idiots, like rats running in a labyrinth until they decide to put us down.” He grabs his hand to drag him with him. “I’ll tell you all about it later. We have a whole life together, after all! After this, we’ll leave and Past Me will grieve and do his job, and you and I will hang out until it’s the present again and we’ll regroup with the others – if we even care at that point.”

Biff looks over his shoulder; the orange soldier hasn’t moved the slightest. “Can he hear us in there?”

“Don’t worry about him!” Temple says. He’s getting inpatient now; a hiss audible in his voice. “Trust me; he deserves it! He tried to stop me – he’ll kill me if we let him out! This- this is justice and it’s the only way of saving you!”

Biff lets himself be led away. “Right…”

“You don’t have to do anything. Look, tomorrow, when the Freelancers arrive, you tell Past Me that the plan is off. You have to tell him that you don’t want him to try to shoot you. Just say that you’ve changed your mind and you want to stay with me – _him_. Past me.”

“Mark-“

“It’s the only way this will work.” Temple gives his hand a squeeze. “Tell him that, and then get away from the base. Hide right here, in this cave, and I’ll come find you when it’s done.”

The shadows hide the orange figure from his view as they reach the mouth of the cave again. But Biff can still hear him; imaginary calls for help echo inside his skull. He closes his eyes. “This is fucked up.”

“Do you want to die?” Temple asks him. The silence he receives is enough of an answer. “Right. We have to do this. It’s the only way to save you.”

* * *

The air is ice cold against his scalding forehead. He isn’t sure why he is feeling so warm. His lips crack open and bleed when he croaks, “You’re fucked up.”

Temple holds the orange helmet in his hands. His expression is disappointed. “I’d hoped you’d starved to death before this, but I guess you’re too fat,” he says while drumming his fingers against the visor.

Grif inhales and the breath is accompanied by a whine. His lungs are tired, and they cannot properly expand in the frozen suit of armor.

In the beginning, the hunger had kept him up. It’d gnawed at his stomach and had added to the increasing horror as he slowly began to piece together Temple’s plan. But now his body is too tired to feel the pain. He supposes the numbness is an improvement. The dehydration has his vision darkening around the edges.

“Don’t give me that look,” Temple spits at him. “You believe yourself to be a hero, right? Biff is innocent! He doesn’t deserve to die! It’s _your job_ to die for _him_.” He paces back and forth, and his steps echo in the enclosed space. The constant movement has Grif feeling nauseous. When he opens his eyes again, Temple is patting his cheek. “It sucks being the good guy, huh.”

“He doesn’t want to,” Grif says. His voice breaks at the end. He wants to say more but his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. He dreams of water.

“He doesn’t want to _die_,” Temple corrects him and rolls his eyes. “Stop complaining. There’s no going back now. Biff and I are going to spend the years _together_. What would you do? It’s not like you can go say hi to your friends. You’d be stuck, all alone, and you don’t want that. I’m doing you a favor, really.”

Grif wishes he could black out just now and save himself from hearing Temple’s words. He has a point; that’s the worst part of it all. Even if he manages to run away, where could he go? The past version of himself won’t leave his friends, and so Grif would be stuck, _alone_, until it they’d reach the present.

He can’t be alone again.

He thinks of Iris, and feels his body grow even more numb. He doesn’t want his thoughts to return to that place – not now when he has limited time to think of anything.

Instead, he tries to focus on Simmons; Simmons, who’d called out for him, stuck in his own maroon armor, as Temple had dragged him with him into the portal. The visor had hidden his face from him, but Grif had heard the panic in his voice, the sobs…

Temple puts the orange helmet back on his face when he sees the tears gathering in the mismatched eyes.

He sneers in distaste and says, “Just go to sleep or whatever. It’ll be done soon.” His voice sounds faraway when he adds, “I have it all under control.”

Grif’s vision is spinning now; colors blurring together until all he can see is cobalt.

He falls unconscious to the sound of Temple’s promise;

“This time, the good guys win.”

* * *

When Grif opens his eyes again, he sees orange.

“You owe me this, Mark,” Biff’s voice says in the distance. “I have to find peace with it, too. So let me have this.”

Gentle hands remove his helmet, and fresh air meets his clammy skin. Without the support, his head hangs limply.

“Holy shit.”

Biff has a hand under his chin, lifting until they have eye-contact. Grif can see himself in him; the brown eyes, dark skin, black hair, round face. There is fear in his eyes, too.

“I’m real sorry about this, man,” Biff tells him. “I want you to know that.” He quickly looks over his shoulder, checking for Temple’s presence, before returning his focus to Grif again. His face is filled with shame. “I don’t know you, or what you’ve done, but still- shit.” He hesitates and bites some skin off his lip. “I don’t want to die,” he confesses in a hoarse whisper.

Grif searches for his voice. He wore it out when he’d yelled, and now his throat feels raw and dry as the desert outside. When he finally speaks, it feels like his mouth bleeds. “Me too…”

Biff’s stare lasts a few more seconds before he covers in shame. When his hands let go, Grif’s chin falls against his chest plate again.

He can’t move his head, but his eyes seek upwards and finds Biff’s retreating orange color. “Temple’s… selfish.” He tries to warn him, and he wishes he could say more, but his vision is swimming again. His body is ready to embrace unconsciousness; it’s easier than dealing with all of this.

“You think I don’t know that?” Biff asks him with a sad snort. “He’s my best friend.” He looks down, flexing his fingers before meeting Grif’s eyes again. “I don’t know if you’ve ever had one, but you- you just gotta love them, even with their flaws. You know?”

Grif thinks of Simmons and his red hair, his freckles and dimples, and the way he’d called him ‘dumbass’ – way it’d changed from being an insult to a gentle greeting.

He tries his best to remember that – Simmons’ voice – as he faints again.

* * *

He’s too tired to deal with this. Too tired to try to stop it from happening.

The sunlight blinds him as Temple drags him out of the cave. It has him feeling sick, but he has nothing left in his stomach to vomit. He supposes that’s a good thing; drowning in his own vomit is the only death more embarrassing than this.

It’s first when he sees a base - so familiar but not the same; not his home – as the realization hits him.

This is not just Temple killing him; it’s Temple making sure Carolina kills him.

Grif won’t let his blood be on her hands, not even if she won’t realize it.

(But what if Temple’s plan works, and he escapes with Biff, and they wait and wait until it’s the present and he’ll find the others and he’ll let him know what he did; he’ll tell Carolina how it’s her fault, even if it was never her decision to make.)

Temple’s blue colors mixes with the one of the sky.

“Don’t- don’t make her do it,” Grif says. He can hear the gunshots in the distance. He knows what they mean.

Temple stops at the noise. “Oh,” he says while positioning Grif in the shadows of the base. They can’t be found; not now, not until Grif is a corpse. “You’re talking about Agent Carolina!”

He laughs and the noise is loud and delicate. “That would be rather poetic, wouldn’t it? Have her skewer you. Death by shish-kebab.” Temple jabs a finger against the sore spot on his stomach where the armor plates fail to meet. He leans closer until their helmets bump together. “But wooden poles don’t break through armor, Grif.”

The air is forced out of Grif’s lungs.

“I didn’t mean to. It was an accident,” Temple continues in rushed, panicked whispers. “He asked me to shoot, and he _knows _I have the worst aim. It wasn’t my fault. So it might as well be Carolina’s.” At the last sentence, he straightens his back and allows confidence to seep into his stance. “It _is _her fault! None of this would have happened if they hadn’t showed up. It was _them_. They did it! _It wasn’t my fault_!”

When he realizes he’s been yelling, he looks over his shoulder and sighs in relief when they are still alone. For now.

Soon the Freelancers will enter Blue Base and one of them will win the flag. He doesn’t care who. The most important thing will happen afterwards.

Right now, Biff is telling Temple that he’s going to stay. That there is no need to pull the trigger. He’ll tell Temple to meet him at the campfire, but it won’t last long before Temple tries to follow him, and he’ll find the dead orange soldier. He’ll break, and grief will lead him down the path of revenge; a path that will end with a time machine, and so the story starts over again.

Temple presses his gun against Grif’s torso. Right against the plates so the bullets will have an easy time breaking through the armor. He still remembers the blood on Biff, the hole in the middle of him, three bullets because Temple’s finger kept shaking against the trigger.

_He hadn’t meant to_…

“But it does make this easier,” Temple tells Grif and shoot him three times. The orange soldier stays in place, kept up by the armor lock.

It doesn’t hurt the way it’s supposed to. Grif feels the sudden pressure in his body, three jabs in his stomach, and there’s warmth, faint, but his body is too numb to fully register what has happened. He knows, of course, what will come next.

Temple watches the blood trail crawl down the legs of the armor, dripping onto the grass.

His right hand holds the gun; the other reaches for the remote and presses the button. Grif collapses, limp as a ragdoll, and Temple steps closer to look down at him.

He isn’t sure if the chest is moving or if it’s a hallucination – blood against orange armor, he remembers; he remembers pulling the trigger, but – _no_. He would never kill Biff. The Freelancers – they didn’t care, they didn’t even stop fighting. It was _their fault,_ _their fighting_ – but he can’t take the chance.

What if his past self removes the helmet?

He presses the gun against the golden visor, hesitates for a single second, and pulls the trigger.

In the following minutes, Carolina and Texas will take their fighting inside Blue Base, and they will shatter the flag pole in their anger, and in the end, Texas will win, and Carolina will curse herself hoarse. Temple will wait for Biff until the worry grows too strong, and as the first of the Sim Troopers, he dares to come closer to the Freelancers’ wreckage, and he’ll find the orange soldier, he will hold the body and he will wail and scream and promise revenge.

But now- now there’s another Temple that leaves to reunite with his best friend. He whistles happily as he thinks of the future ahead of them, but frowns when he notices the blood that sticks to his gloves.

It’s impossible to stay clean when fighting dirty, he supposes.

Temple washes his hands before he goes to embrace Biff, and he tells himself that it isn’t ironic at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to Stickynotesdoodler! This is an early birthday present, as you gave me to the thumbs up to publish it tonight! I hope you'll enjoy it! Thanks for always discussing Grif whump with me.
> 
> As always: English isn't my native language so I apologize for any mistakes, and you can find me as riathedreamer on tumblr and twitter.


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